The prophet's handbook

symbolize the inherent presence and power residing in the deity’s minister. With goddesses it was no different. Their servants too dressed in attire that represented them and their kingdoms and portrayed the power they possessed and wielded. For instance, Ishtar’s priests often were transvestites who wore feminine clothing to imitate their goddess. When the Lord God Jehovah established Himself as Israel’s God, He took great pains to tell the Israelites how they would and would not look to the other nations. Likewise, His priests were admonished to adorn themselves exactly as He commanded with no variation whatsoever. No fertility emblems that imaged pagan gods were to be worn before Him. The people were not to look at the priests’ attire and be inspired to resort to their pagan rituals and orgies. Again, the purpose was not only to depict Yahweh, Israel’s God, but it was also to not misrepresent His image to His people and cause them to serve another deity in His place. Often, during humanity’s darkest eras, priests of one tribe’s gods dressed up like the gods of their enemies to infiltrate their temples, spy out their wealth, and plunder their goods. With the sacred and profane being so tightly fused in those days, it made a good warfare tactic for a takeover. Naive worshippers, moved by sight, easily succumbed to these ploys. Today we would call such outfits that depict a line of work, rank of authority, or religious statement, “service uniforms,“ and they would be the equivalent of those worn by modern civil, religious, and military workers. Mantles Signified the Prophet Throughout all history, the mantle signified the prophet. Every prophet dispatched by a deity wore select garments that brought to mind his stature and epitomized the nature of his messages as delivered to him by his or her god(s). Elijah’s hairy garment is a good example of this; John the Baptist inherited it. While we all know such outfits may not be needed under the New Testament era, their symbolic counterparts do apply. Otherwise, how else could John the Baptist have been recognized as the resurgence of Elijah’s mantle? A Mantle A mantle, first of all, is a cloak, a covering, and an emblem of authority or power. It denotes an office’s insignia of service. The specific Hebrew word for the prophet’s mantle is addereth. It comes from the root of their word addir. Together the two words mean, and inform us, of the following things about mantles in general, and the prophet’s mantle in particular.